Friday, August 2, 2013

Zombies, Distributed Generation, and Climate Policy

Since the blog seems to be on summer vacation, I’m trying to be more entertaining , and less wonky. I’m a big fan of distributed scale
renewables and microgrids. I’ve previously cited economic opportunities, increased
grid resiliency, climate change, and environmental protections as reasons to go small with renewables. However, I had not considered
perhaps the most important reason of all. According to Leia Guccione & James
Sherwood @ RMI.org, “the most compelling
reason to invest in microgrids: to prepare for the zombie apocalypse.” Enjoy
their light-hearted discussion of the serious subject of microgirds and small
scale renewables - Preparing
for the Zombie Apocalypse: Are Microgrids Our Only Chance?As the authors note, “Scoff at your own peril”.

According to
grist.org, Some
Iowans might already be infected.The
tone of this article is kind of disappointing though. It seems the climate
hawks are displaying some zombie-like tendencies of their own. Climate hawks
have been using the same messaging for several years, but haven’t built much
public support for climate policy. Yet they stay the course, hoping for
different results. The author connects
the dots that the opinions of some of the folks mentioned in this article are likely
the position of their campaign funders as much as the candidates themselves,
and also that public opinion is swayed by the deep pockets of vested
interests who make lots of $ under the current system. But both sides of this debate seem unwilling
to compromise and start discussing policies that the public actually likes
and that help lower co2 emissions. When policy makers and advocates start
talking about things like locally owned renewables and full campaign funding disclosures,
then maybe we can be assured that they aren’t roaming the streets looking for brains.